Cerner Corp.’s new office complex being planned for western Wyandotte County represents a key investment in the company’s future and reflects the strong growth the medical software developer has enjoyed in recent years.

The approximately 600,000-square-foot complex, which will create 4,000 jobs and accompany an 18,000-seat soccer stadium for the Kansas City Wizards, also is viewed as fulfilling the promise of an office component that officials made when the Village West tourism district was proposed years ago. It is expected to be a significant catalyst to attract commercial and residential development throughout the area, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in direct and indirect economic benefits.

Brent Miles, president of the Wyandotte Economic Development Council, said the Cerner complex would almost double the county’s existing 616,000 square feet of Class A office space.

“So it’s got a little bit of impact,” he said.

In the development agreement approved in January by the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kan., the developers — Kansas Unified Development LLC, an entity created by Wizards owner OnGoal LLC and Lane4 Property Group Inc. — will begin building the more than $400 million complex during the next two years.

Construction already has begun on the $165 million soccer stadium, which must be completed by 2012 on an 11-acre site between Nebraska Furniture Mart and the Kansas Speedway. Wizards CEO Robb Heineman has said he plans to have the field ready by midseason next year. The soccer portion of the deal also includes a $35 million complex including 18 to 24 tournament-quality youth soccer fields in nearby Wyandotte County Park and three recreational soccer fields at locations within the county to be determined.

The Cerner campus will be built on 58 acres between the Great Wolf Lodge and Chateau Avalon. Company spokeswoman Kelli Christman said groundbreaking for no less than 100,000 square feet is scheduled for Dec. 1, 2011, with workers beginning to move in by the end of 2012.

As part of the agreement, the developers will receive $232 million in state tax credits and cash incentives, with the rest of the money coming from private investment.

The agreement requires Cerner to create the 4,000 jobs with an average annual salary of $54,000 by December 2016. If not, the developer must pay $30.4 million to the Unified Government, which is being required to forward that money to the state.

Cerner, based in North Kansas City, hasn’t yet said exactly what those employees will be doing. Christman said the office probably will focus on customer service, such as billing and collections, remote computer-hosting services or customer support for Cerner-branded and non-Cerner-branded products.

“We won’t know until close to moving in,” she said.

Such rapid growth is not far-fetched for Cerner, which has seen its employee work force jump 58 percent since 2002, to 7,575 last year, Christman said. The company has benefitted as more hospitals and doctor’s offices are swapping their paper medical records for computer databases, a trend that most likely will increase thanks to federal Medicare requirements and financial incentives. Cerner also has attracted new customers by offering to maintain and operate customers’ computer systems remotely, either to save the cost of having in-house information technology workers or to hedge against natural disasters wiping out their records.

Officials won’t be able to get a true feel for how much the development will boost the area’s economy until Cerner employees start showing up for work. But an analysis by consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal, released last year, predicted the office complex would generate an annual economic impact of $528 million and an additional $17.6 million in income, sales and property taxes.

The economic impact includes employee salaries, leasing income and other indirect business taxes. The study estimated the complex would generate an additional 1,888 jobs as retailers, medical equipment developers and call center operators located in the area to be near Cerner.

“Because these are all net new jobs, the economic impact is not reduced from displacement or cannibalization, which can take place when new retail or hospitality developments are evaluated,” the report said. “This helps to add to the economic punch of the project, making this for Wyandotte County almost like getting another KU Med Center.”

Miles said his office already has received a “flood of calls” from companies looking to relocate to the area as well as from developers looking to build housing for Cerner workers.

“It’s going to make other people say, ‘Why aren’t I in western Wyandotte?’” he said. “I think it’s coming together nicely and probably better than we envisioned 10 years ago, even maybe five years ago.”

For example, he pointed out that the original plan for Village West called for an office component, which was never built. That left retailers relying largely on night and weekend traffic to fill their cash registers.

“We believe that the direct impact of Cerner with daytime population in the Village West can only add customers,” he said, “therefore adding revenues and sales taxes revenues, which will ultimately benefit our financial state.”

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